The present invention relates to the field of cold cathode fluorescent lamp based lighting and more particularly to an arrangement in which balancing transformers are supplied at the lamp end associated with the driving transformer.
Fluorescent lamps are used in a number of applications including, without limitation, backlighting of display screens, televisions and monitors. One particular type of fluorescent lamp is a cold cathode fluorescent lamp (CCFL). Such lamps require a high starting voltage (typically on the order of 700 to 1,600 volts) for a short period of time to ionize a gas contained within the lamp tubes and fire or ignite the lamp. This starting voltage may be referred to herein as a strike voltage or striking voltage. After the gas in a CCFL is ionized and the lamp is fired, less voltage is needed to keep the lamp on.
In liquid crystal display (LCD) applications, a backlight is needed to illuminate the screen so as to make a visible display. Backlight systems in LCD or other applications typically include one or more CCFLs and an inverter system to provide both DC to AC power conversion and control of the lamp brightness. Even brightness across the panel and clean operation of inverters with low switching stresses, low EMI, and low switching losses is desirable.
The lamps are typically arranged with their longitudinal axis proceeding horizontally. In general, even brightness involves two dimensions: uniform brightness in the vertical dimension, i.e. among the various lamps; and uniform brightness along the longitudinal axis of each of the various lamps in the horizontal dimension. Brightness uniformity in the vertical dimension is largely dependent on matching the lamp currents, which normally requires a certain type of balancing technique to maintain an even lamp current distribution. U.S. Pat. No. 7,242,147 issued Jul. 10, 2007 to Jin, entitled “Current Sharing Scheme for Multiple CCFL Lamp Operation”, the entire contents of which is incorporated herein by reference, is addressed to a ring balancer comprising a plurality of balancing transformers which facilitate current sharing in a multi-lamp backlight system thus providing even lamp current distribution. Advantageously, such a ring balancer may be arranged with a low voltage, high current loop, thereby exhibiting limited leakage to a metal chassis.
Brightness uniformity in the horizontal dimension is impacted by the existence of parasitic capacitance between the CCFLs and the chassis. As a result of the parasitic capacitance, leakage current exists along the length of the lamps and such leakage further results in diminishing brightness along the lamps' longitudinal axis towards the cold end in a single ended drive architecture. The term single ended drive architecture refers to a backlight arrangement in which the high voltage drive power is applied from only one side of the lamp, which is usually called the ‘hot’ end, and the other side of the lamp is normally at ground potential and referred as the ‘cold’ end.
What is desired, and not provided by the prior art, is a backlighting arrangement that can preferably provide relatively even luminance across each lamp in the system, preferably with only one inverter circuit, and further preferably provide balance for currents between lamps in the system via balancing transformers located at the lamp end associated with the driving transformer.